Dual Cultivation System: The Villainous Servant’s Rise

Chapter 247: You Don’t Even Have the Qualification to Self-Destruct in Front of Me!

At her words, Old Ghost Black Sha went rigid.

Panic flickered across his face, stark and undeniable, before he forcibly smoothed his expression into a mask of stoic outrage.

“Grand Elder,” he said, his voice tight. “Are you implying that I am in league with the Sun Moon Sect?”

Chi Lian did not answer. She merely stared at him, a faint, inscrutable smile playing on her lips. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

Unnerved, Black Sha shifted his gaze to Han Lie. “Elder Han, it is true we have had our differences. But simply because I left the mountain to clear my head for a few days, you wish to pin such a damnable crime on me? Is this truly necessary?”

He thumped his chest, feigning heartache. “This Senior’s old bones cannot bear the weight of such slander. Grand Elder, I joined the Heavenly Void Sect at twenty. Everything I possess—my status, my power, my life—was bestowed by the Sect. Even if I loathed Elder Han to my core, I would never sever my own roots!”

He spoke with the righteous indignation of a martyr, his voice ringing with conviction. To an outside observer, he looked for all the world like a loyal veteran wrongly accused.

“Is that so?”

Chi Lian’s voice was light, teasing. “Then take a guess, Hall Master. Why did I summon you specifically, and not any of the others?”

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing into crescents. “Let me save you the trouble of lying. Yesterday, the Sect Leader and I confronted Old Ghost Yin Mei at Dragon City. During the standoff, Zhao Batian sold you out.”

Black Sha’s breath hitched.

“If you were dissatisfied with the sect, you could have come to me,” Chi Lian continued, her tone dangerously soft. “You are a veteran Hall Master. We could have offered you appeasement, resources, face… anything you wanted. But you shouldn’t have allied with outsiders to strike at your own kin. You shouldn’t have targeted Elder Han Lie.”

She paused, letting the weight of her aura press down on him.

“You know the penalty for treason, don’t you?”

The blood drained from Old Ghost Black Sha’s face. His vision swam.

The psychological dam broke. He couldn’t hold the facade.

“G-Grand Elder! It must be… it must be Zhao Batian slandering me!” he stammered, sweat beading on his forehead. “He is trying to sow discord! Surely you wouldn’t trust the word of an enemy over mine?”

“Half and half,” Chi Lian shrugged elegantly. “I trust his malice as much as I trust your ambition. But you are the only one with the motive.”

Her smile vanished, replaced by a cold, flat stare. “I know you, Black Sha. I know your nature. You are petty, vindictive, and entirely capable of this.”

“You can argue until your tongue rots, but my principle remains: Better to kill the wrong man than let a traitor walk free.”

“I have the safety of the entire Heavenly Void Sect to consider. If I spare you, and you truly are conspiring with Zhao Batian, how will I explain the subsequent disaster to the Sect Leader?”

She inspected her fingernails nonchalantly. “So, even if you are innocent… you’ll just have to die for the greater good.”

Thump.

Old Ghost Black Sha felt his heart skip a beat. The terror of imminent death aged him in an instant; his hair seemed to whiten, his posture collapsing as if thirty years had crashed down upon his shoulders.

“No… No! Grand Elder!”

His pupils shrank to pinpoints. All dignity vanished. He slammed his head against the floor, begging. “Don’t do this! I have served the sect faithfully! Give me a chance—I admit it! I admit it!”

He looked up, eyes wild and desperate. “That day… Zhao Batian did approach This Senior. But This Senior only wanted to teach Han Lie a lesson! It was a personal grudge! I never intended to betray the Sect! Please, Grand Elder, for the sake of my centuries of service, spare me!”

Han Lie and Chi Lian exchanged a knowing glance.

Han Lie had been right. The rot was indeed deep.

From a strategic perspective, Black Sha’s confession was a calculated gamble. By admitting to an internal feud rather than treason, he hoped to leverage his past contributions. According to sect law, plotting against an Elder might result in the abolition of cultivation or imprisonment, but it wasn’t necessarily a death sentence like treason. He was trying to buy his life, even if he had to live it as a cripple.

It was the correct move for a desperate man.

Unfortunately, he had miscalculated his value.

“If I give you a chance,” Chi Lian mused, “who will give me one?”

She looked down at him with zero empathy. “Colluding with outsiders to frame a Sect Elder is already a capital offense. But more importantly… in the eyes of the Sect Leader, and in my eyes, Han Lie is worth infinitely more than you.”

“To ensure this never happens again, I need to make an example. You are the chicken I must kill to warn the monkeys.”

She flicked her finger.

Thwip.

A streak of crimson energy shot from her fingertip, faster than thought.

“Pfft!”

The beam punched cleanly through Old Ghost Black Sha’s chest, shattering his sternum and severing his meridians. He vomited a spray of blood, his aura instantly withering like a dying flame.

“G-Grand Elder!”

He clutched his chest, blood seeping through his fingers. “You… you truly intend to exterminate me?”

His face twisted from fear into a mask of pure, venomous hatred.

“What do you think?” Chi Lian smirked, a cruel, beautiful expression.

“You… You bitch!”

Black Sha roared, his eyes bulging. “If you want This Senior to die, then I won’t let you live in peace!”

The air around him violently distorted. The spiritual energy in his dantian began to boil and collapse inward—he was initiating a Self-Destruction. A Nascent Soul cultivator detonating themselves at this range would level the entire Council Hall and likely cripple anyone inside.

But Chi Lian merely sighed.

She extended a hand, palm open.

From the void, crimson ribbons of energy materialized, wrapping around Black Sha like a constrictor snake. The violent, unstable energy within his body was instantly, forcibly suffocated.

The swelling light in his chest died out.

“Heh. With your paltry Late Nascent Soul cultivation?” Chi Lian scoffed, looking down at him like a goddess viewing a worm. “You don’t even have the qualification to Self-Destruct in front of me.”

Black Sha struggled against the crimson bonds, but it was futile. He went limp, his eyes dead with despair. Against the Grand Elder, he was nothing. He couldn’t even choose the manner of his own death.

“Sister Chi Lian,” a voice piped up from the side.

Han Lie stepped forward, eyeing the defeated Hall Master with undisguised hunger. “Are you certain you’re going to kill him?”

“You heard him. He conspired with Zhao Batian.” Chi Lian nodded. “He has no right to continue drawing breath.”

She looked at Han Lie with approval. “It is fortunate you had such bold intuition. Without it, fishing this traitor out would have been a headache.”

She genuinely hadn’t expected a man who joined at twenty, a pillar of the sect, to turn coat so thoroughly.

“Hehe, you flatter me, Sister.”

Han Lie smiled, his gaze locking onto Black Sha’s trembling form. He hadn’t just suspected Black Sha out of logic; he had suspected him because Black Sha was the biggest obstacle in his path.

“But Sister Chi Lian… since he is going to die anyway, would you mind if I squeezed the last bit of value out of him first?”

Han Lie’s eyes gleamed.

Old Ghost Black Sha was a cultivator at the threshold of Nascent Soul Perfection. To Han Lie, who possessed the Middle Grade divine ability—the Star-Sucking Demonic Art—this wasn’t a person.

This was a massive, walking pill of pure experience points.

Waste not, want not.

………